TIMING: Early April LOCATION: The Chimera PARTIES: @vivlennox & @incatsclothing SUMMARY: Rory & Viv are both grabbing a drink at The Chimera. Then all hell breaks loose. CONTENT WARNINGS: none!
The Chimera had become something of a second home to Rory in her time in Wicked’s Rest. She’d spent a lot of time here, rubbing elbows with other shifters and working to make connections she hoped might help her with her ultimate goal of controlling her shifting. These days, though, she was a little more uncertain about it. These days, she was a little more uncertain about everything.
Doubt sat heavy on her shoulders, weighing her down as she quietly fiddled with the glass she’d been nursing since her arrival. She’d been more careful with where she sat tonight, avoiding taking up any seats next to anyone who smelled lupine or feline. She felt oddly tainted, like everyone who saw her must know that something was wrong with her. It was a bad feeling; it was a familiar feeling. Rory had felt this way for most of her life. All attempts to outrun it only ever seemed to come up short.
The end result to her selective seating found her sitting alone at the corner of the bar, an empty seat beside her. She quietly hoped no one would take it, which was an unfamiliar thing. Most of the time, Rory liked sitting next to a stranger at the Chimera. She liked being able to talk to other shifters, liked learning what they were and feeling the implicit trust that came with knowing that the person beside you was at least kind of like you. Now, though, it felt more like a threat. She thought of Talia, and the way she’d tried to explain to Rory their shared jaunt in the woods after the last blackout. She was no longer sure she wanted to meet people like her.
The bar was crowded, though, and someone took the seat beside her before long. Rory sighed in quiet relief at the fact that it was at least someone who was neither a werewolf nor a balam, though she didn’t know the scent of them well enough to figure out what they actually were. The bartender came to serve them, eyeing Rory with a look that said she’d need to order another drink soon or give up her seat. She sighed, preparing to throw back the drink to order another when a commotion at the far end of the room caught her attention. Someone’s argument was getting louder, but the bartender seemed unconcerned. Rory made a face. “No need to make it everyone else’s problem,” she muttered, swallowing the remnants of her drink and nodding to the bartender for another.
—
It had taken her a year and a half to find The Chimera. And fuck had Viv been grateful when she had. She liked the other bars well enough. Liked the Wormhole in all its dive bar glory. But she couldn’t let loose there. Not fully. The Chimera was different. No one there was human. There was nothing wrong with fur, or claws, or tails. They were all the same in that they were all different. That was one of the things she missed most, about home. She missed her family- how none of them were the same. Fae, undead, shifters- all of them, one big, happy, slightly dysfunctional family.
Viv hopped up into a seat at the bar, stretching as she settled in after a long day at work, pretending that she was so happy to take people’s orders. Before long she had a beer in her hands, and she took in the people around her. Viv had never been particularly gifted at guessing what kind of different people were. Until she spied a fang, or a scale, she played a little guessing game. She wasn’t sure where she’d rank the woman, but something in her gut said she wasn’t like Viv.
She was pulled from her mental guessing game as two guys at the end of the bar were getting rowdy. Viv rolled her eyes, glancing over at the woman next to her with a wry grin. “Someone needs to tell them to take their dick measuring contest outside. No one gives a fuck.” She raised her glass in a little salute. The shouts were getting louder as the argument continued. “Hey, five bucks says pint sized lumberjack throws the first punch.” She jerked her chin where the shorter of the two men was standing like a bear, trying to make himself appear bigger. Bugbear, maybe?
—
She snorted at the other woman’s response, deciding immediately that she liked this stranger. Despite appearances, it wasn’t particularly hard to earn Rory’s favor, especially not if you were a shifter. To Rory, a person was decent to be around so long as they weren’t painfully cheery or annoyingly optimistic. Of course, they also couldn’t be depressing, either. So… maybe there was a fine line to walk, but with one sentence, this woman managed to dance across it like an acrobat. “Seriously,” she agreed. “Like, pretty sure we’ve all got better things to do than listen to them argue.” The bartender would probably toss them out, but not for a while. They weren’t exactly quick to throw people out of the Chimera. You had to really earn it. (Rory had, a few times.)
Turning to look at her newfound companion, Rory found her lips twitching into a smirk. She leaned back to study the two men at the center of the argument, caught a whiff of both of them. The smaller guy with the beard smelled like the guy who’d fought her for the privilege of licking a giant rock once, which meant he was probably a bear. She couldn’t get a good feel for the other one, though; too many shifters in one place muddied the senses a little. Still, Rory wasn’t one to turn down a bet, even if she knew she might not win it. “Okay, sure,” she said, “you’ve got yourself a —”
Before she could even finish her sentence, a chair crashed into the bugbear. But it wasn’t the man he’d been arguing with who’d thrown it — instead, it was a burly woman who hadn’t been involved in the fight at all. Her eyes flashed yellow, and the bugbear stood and roared loudly, the shift already rippling through his skin. Rory knew this was well on its way to chaos… and the exit was all the way on the other side of the bar, with the fight in the middle. “Well, shit.”
—
It hadn’t even been a full minute by the time Viv lost a five dollar bet. She really should have known better than to make bets or promises in a town that seemed to be dead set on a cosmic level to ruin her fucking day at every possible turn. Still, even down five bucks, at least watching a feral looking woman reducing a chair to splinters as she wailed it against one of the men fighting at the end of the bar was entertaining. She could accept losing five bucks for that sort of spectacle.
Viv let out a low whistle, taking a long sip of her drink as she watched the man at the end of the bar bones stretch and twist, and hair turned to fur as he shifted into— hey, she was right!— a big ass bear. “Welp,” she sighed, pushing back from the bar casually as the bugbear at the far end of the room let out a roar. “So much for a casual drink.” Animalistic grunts and shrieks added to the cacophony of the fight that seemed to be spreading across the bar like ripples in a pond.
“You any good in a fight?” Viv stretched out her back, arms reaching high overhead as the pins and needle tickle of scales that dotted her arms and cheeks crawled across her skin. At least she didn’t have to fully transform in order to give herself an edge in a brawl.
—
Rory couldn’t exactly celebrate winning a bet when the whole room was dissolving into utter chaos around her. She was no stranger to barfights — working at the Wormhole meant she’d been spectator to many — but there was always something a little unsettling about being thrown in the middle of a stranger’s beef. Rory was good enough at keeping a neutral expression, ensuring the woman beside her likely had no idea that she had any sort of discomfort at all, but she gripped her glass a little tighter as she watched the violence unfold.
“Hard thing to find, in this town,” she commented, unable to hold back a wince as the bugbear swiped a paw through the air, catching his opponent with a claw. It wasn’t a deep enough cut to put anyone at risk of bleeding out, but Rory couldn’t imagine it was particularly comfortable, either. Someone else jumped up at the sight of this, evidently taking offence to the move as they ran at the bugbear. Someone else seemed upset by that and swung at the newcomer. More and more people joined in on the fight, and the bartender’s screams for them to all simmer down fell on deaf ears.
The woman next to her stretched, scales crawling over her skin. Some kind of reptile shifter, then? Rory still didn’t know all the different types, despite spending time at the Chimera. She was usually hyperfocused on finding balam, after all. “Uh, decent,” she replied, “but I can’t shift on command, so I’m pretty sure I’m better off making a run for it.” She had no shame in admitting that. A shifted shifter fighting someone in human form was never going to be a ‘fair’ fight, after all. “You?”
—
“Ain’t that the fucking truth.” Viv groused. She pressed her glass to her lips, tilting her head way back as she swallowed down the rest of her beer. She flicked her tongue across her lips, refusing to waste the last few amber drops. The girl didn’t seem scared shitless, which counted for something in Viv’s book. She did seem vaguely familiar. It took her a few moments to realize she was used to seeing the kid on the other side of the bar. “But I guess bar fights here are more interesting than at the wormhole, huh?”
She couldn’t shift on command, though. That made their current predicament more difficult. “I can hold my own. But in case you didn’t notice, im not the most imposing fucker here.” She gestured to herself, petite figure perched on a bar stool, legs dangling above the floor. “At least, not right now. And I really don’t feel like eating some furball to prove a point.” Viv hopped off her chair, and glanced around the space that was growing rowdier by the minute. “Alright, two options. Push through the chaos, or sneak through the back. Your call, kid.”
—
It wasn’t until the woman mentioned fights at the Wormhole that Rory felt the faint tug of recognition on her gut — she knew this lady. At least, kind of. Not well, or anything — she definitely hadn’t known she was a shifter before running into her here — but she’d seen her before. Usually, Rory was serving her drinks and exchanging the occasional eye roll with her. This, she decided, was a lot more fun. “Yeah,” she agreed with a snort, “people at the Wormhole don’t usually turn into bears mid-fight. Which, honestly? Works out better for me. I’d rather experience this kind of fight as someone who isn’t going to be stuck cleaning up whatever shit they break.”
No, she definitely wasn’t the most imposing person here. Neither was Rory, for that matter. And as annoying as the fight was, Rory didn’t really want anyone involved to be eaten (if this woman was serious about doing that). She didn’t like the idea of anyone being hurt, much less fellow shifters. Considering her options, she looked across the bar. “Through the back is probably the least amount of trouble,” she replied. “And the smallest chance of getting sat on by a bear. Wanna hop the bar?”
—
“Not our circus,” Viv shrugged, ignoring the people near them that were starting to get carried away with the energy shift. “Don’t know why anyone would pick a fight with a bugbear. Scary as shit when they want to b—“ No sooner had the words left her mouth, than nightmare fuel appeared on the far side of the room. “Yup, not our circus, not our circus.” The lamia hissed, as a massive set of pincers seemed to burst through the wall. She’d seen Grizz at work enough times to know that it was very likely a hallucination, but she didn’t feel like waiting around to find out.
“Hopping the bar’s a solid plan.” Viv boosted herself back up onto the bar top, and swung over onto the other side. There was an eerie clicking noise from where the massive pincers (and the new addition of a few dozen glowing yellow eyes) were terrorizing the patrons nearest to the brawl. Viv shivered and grabbed a random bottle from the bar well, and waved the other girl along. “Add this to my tab!” She shouted at the bartender as she pushed past them to make her way into the back.
—
The other woman seemed to know more about bugbears than Rory did, though Rory recognized that this wasn’t a difficult thing to achieve. Though she’d been raised a shifter, her family had been rather integrated into human society. Rory knew plenty about lamia, knew a thing or two about werewolves, but she didn’t know much outside of that beyond what she’d learned in this town. She was learning more now, watching the fight with wide eyes. “Dude,” she breathed as giant pinchers burst through the wall. She was too busy being impressed to be afraid.
She was so busy, in fact, that she didn’t realize the other woman was moving until she was already on the other side of the bar. Rory blinked as the woman waved for her to join, pulling her attention away from the fight in order to hop the bar and make a hasty retreat alongside her new friend. “Tag me if you post this on TikTok,” she called back to the bartender, turning to give them a quick salute on her way out.
As they moved towards the back, something jumped the bar, skirting by Rory’s legs and in front of the other woman. Small, brightly colored, holding a knife. Rory faltered, blinking down at it. “Is that a… baby knife clown?”
—
The bugbears were really fucking going for it with their antics. Viv almost wanted to take in the sights and be impressed, if it weren’t for the scary-as-fuck visions dancing before her eyes. At least Grizz knew how to make his hallucinations the fun sort of scary. The kid was shouting something about Tik tok as she made her way over the bar behind Viv, but the lamia was not hanging around to find out more about whatever fucked up social media trend the kid thought this could have been for.
The basement of the old house The Chimera hid itself away in had a flight of stairs that served as the emergency exit. Viv didn’t live the thought of going up a rickety flight of stairs in a seemingly condemned building, but it was probably fine. They turned the corner, and stopped short at what lay in their path. A tiny clown with a knife. “Be so fucking for real right now.” She grumbled. “My dad is a clown you assholes. Don’t make me scared of fucking clowns.” The knife in the tiny clown’s hand rotated in a circle, and a creepy music box version of pop goes the weasel echoed over the din of the bar fight in the next room. “Oh fuck you,” she grumbled, trying to skirt her way around the tiny clown. As the melody hit pop!, the tiny clown hulked out and grew three times in size. “Fuck—“ Viv grabbed the other woman’s wrist and hauled ass toward the stairs.
—
“Your dad is a clown?” Rory had, like, so many follow-up questions for this woman. Of course, those questions would probably need to wait; the baby knife clown was moving towards them menacingly, then growing into a much larger knife clown with a creepy giggle that sounded as though it had been recorded on a staticky tape recorder some twenty years prior. It was definitely all sorts of unsettling and, yeah, okay, pretty scary; Rory could have done without the whole thing.
Luckily, her newfound ally seemed to be in agreement with her there. A hand clamped around her wrist, which was a good thing since Rory was a little frozen with the creepy clown of it all. She stumbled up the stairs, the other woman towing her along. Behind her, she swore she saw the stairs melting into tar, flowing down like a waterfall whose top grew ever closer to her feet. “We need to speed up!” She squeaked, pushing at the other woman’s back to encourage a little more speed. “Go, go, go!”
—
“One of them is— shit!” Viv ducked as the expanding baby clown’s knife grew in size with it. She knew the visions couldn’t hurt her, but the instinct to duck and cover when a massive knife was growing toward her head was strong. “Whichever one of you fuckers made the creepy clown, I’m fucking eating your bitch ass!” Viv shouted into the bar. It wasn’t a great threat, but she didn’t have time to workshop creative death threats.
They were sprinting up the stairs— the stairs that appeared to be melting like something out of a Dali painting. The sight was enough to have her legs vanishing from sight as they merged into one long tail, and she slithered them both up the stairs and out into the evening air, slamming the door into the face of the big baby clown. Wild red eyes looked at the woman beside her, and she started to laugh. “You good?” Viv asked.
—
She had gay clown dads? Rory was seriously pissed at the clown baby’s sudden decision to turn into a giant clown baby, because it was interrupting a conversation that had just become incredibly interesting. Like, if one of her dads was a clown, what was the other one? Did her clown dad wear his clown outfit around the house? No, right? Probably no? Rory needed answers so fucking bad. “God, take an extra bite for me. This is pissing me off!”
The soles of her shoes stuck to the stairs as they melted beneath her, but not to the point of freezing her in place. Rory fell down onto all fours to gain better traction, though she remained in human form as she did so. (The last thing this situation needed was an out of control werewolf. If she ate this snake lady, she’d never find out more about her gay clown dad.) Her hands stuck to the ground, too, and for a moment, Rory thought she was a goner. But then, the snake woman shifted, tail taking the place of her legs as she used her slippier form to get them both up the stairs and out the door. Rory breathed a sigh of relief as the door slammed shut between them and the giant baby clown, slumping against the brick wall behind her. “I’m good,” she replied, letting out a breathless laugh of her own. “Fuck. That was so fucked up. Why a clown? Why a baby clown?”
—
Viv’s chest heaved as she slumped down into a pile of pink scales. She was so used to the visions a bugbear could conjure up. Grizz’s more often than not had been of the fun-scary variety. The thrills and chills associated with a circus and side show. But seeing what some other bear’s imagination had created had sent her heart into a full gallop in her chest, even though she knew it all to be an illusion. Fucking bugbears. Her face wrinkled into a petulant scowl as she glared back at the door. “Fucking least creative bugbear I’ve ever seen. Melting floor? Seriously? Assholes.”
She shrugged at the woman’s question. “Who the fuck knows. Probably saw Poltergeist one too many times. Thinks they’re so fucking funny. Clowns aren’t even scary. They’re fucking funny. They’re fun. Stupid fucking asshole…” Viv carried on her grumbling as she stretched out before her body contracted back in on itself, the long tail of the lamia crunching back into her much more compact human form. “Think we can get free drinks out of this mess the next time we’re in?”
—
It was clear that this woman knew far more about shifters than Rory did. She wouldn’t have known the things unfolding in the bar were an illusion without the other confirming it, and she certainly wouldn’t have known it was the fault of a bugbear. There were a thousand questions in her mind, both about the shifter aspect and about the woman in general. How did she know all of this? What was she, with the snake scales and the tail? And what was the deal with her gay clown dad?
She sat back a little as the other shifted into human form, snorting a half-laugh at the question. “Maybe,” she said. “Probably. But I’m not sure I can wait for ‘next time’ to drink this off. Want to find another bar with me? We could decompress a little.” Her heart stuttered a little, the same way it always did when she was trying to befriend someone; as if rejection was a sure thing, hanging heavy over her head. She pushed the feeling down, not wanting to dwell on it. “I’m Rory, by the way.”
—
“Fuck it, why not. We earned it.” Viv shrugged, heading for the spot she’d parked her bike in, jerking her chin to tell the younger shifter to come along. “I know a place. Hope you like dives.” A tired smile snaked its way across her face. “Viv. Now c’mon. Let’s get the fuck out of her before those dipshits decide to take the fight outside.” She opened up the storage in the back seat and fished out her spare helmet, and tossed it to the kid before hopping on. A drink somewhere that wouldn’t get spontaneously invaded by visions of gargantuan insects and tiny knife wielding clowns was exactly what they deserved. Viv’s motorbike roared to life, and the two sped off in search of another round.
